Photorealistic image synthesis is concerned with the computer simulation of taking a photograph in the real world. Synthesizing such images that cannot be distinguished from real photographs includes identifying all light transport paths that connect the light sources with a camera device and summing up their contributions.
Evaluating the optical properties of surfaces and simulating how they scatter photons are core routines in light transport simulation algorithms. Many mathematical models have been developed for this purpose. However, the visual quality of such mathematical models has been limited due their approximate nature.
In contrast, measured material data can capture the physical behavior of surfaces in a much more precise way. While the evaluation of measured data is straightforward, simulating photon scattering using such data so far has not been very efficient, especially on SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) and SIMT (Single-Instruction, Multiple-Thread) architectures.
Thus, there is a need for addressing this issue and/or other issues associated with the prior art.